This Week In Quotes (Double Edition)

I’ve become fatalistic about this. Yes, Trump would be a disaster for the party in most ways. Yes we should do all we can do to avoid that — and yes, that means if he’s one delegate short of the nomination, he should be denied it.

Unless, by some miracle, polls show that he has some kind of reasonable chance to win the election — which I doubt in the extreme; and also, I’m still not sure I could support him even if he wasn’t going to drag the movement into the dumpster fire with him. He seems, frankly, crazed do me, with his bizarre fixation on hand-size and Megyn Kelly.

I have my own personal Psychological Fitness test, and Trump has flunked it as hard as someone could possibly flunk it.

What message do these people think they’re sending, when their response to mass murder is to draw cartoon tears on children’s comic book characters? — Ace

Trump has largely plateaued with voters, too, reaching a ceiling of around 40 percent backing in almost all contests at a time when earlier front-runners were moving toward majority support. (At a comparable point in 2008 McCain hit 50 percent or more in eleven consecutive contests; Trump has not won half the vote in any of the 31 states that have voted and has reached at least 45 percent in only five.) Exit polls show Trump consistently drawing less support in the GOP primaries from women and college graduates than from men and non-college educated Republicans; in the national CNN poll, nearly two-thirds of the Republicans not supporting Trump said they viewed him unfavorably. — Ronald Brownstein

With all due respect, ‘He started it!’ is the argument of a five-year-old. — Anderson Cooper to Donald Trump

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

I will not vote to give control of nuclear weapons and the world’s most powerful military to a man who trolls on Twitter after midnight. — Keith Hennessey

Instead of asking how we have ended up with an economy that offers stability and reward only to the holders of a college diploma, and how we might change that, elites of both parties focus on the things they want for themselves. Republicans offer tax cuts and deregulation, as if everyone in America were going to become an entrepreneur. Democrats offer free college tuition and paid maternity leave, as if these things were a great benefit to people who don’t have the ability, preparation or inclination to sit through four years of college, and as a result, can’t find a decent job from which to take their leave.

While there are a lot of things on the parties’ agendas that primarily benefit the educated, there are very few that primarily benefit people who aren’t like us. The implicit assumption of elites in both parties is that the solution for the rest of the country is to become more like us, either through education or entrepreneurship. Rarely does anyone discuss how we might build an economy that works for people who aren’t like us and don’t want to turn into us. — Megan McCardle

So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate. Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it really fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works. — Barack Obama

When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. — Glenn Reynolds

Donald Trump has had several foreign wives. It turns out that there really are jobs Americans won’t do. — Mitt Romney